Home Automation - Should I leave some pull-cord in place?

Hi folks,

I'm about to wire up every room in my house with ethernet, phone, and CATV, so you'll be hearing a lot from me over the next few days. This is just one of several questions I have. Actually, I'd first like to ask if there's a website that addresses doing all this? Maybe someone's written it all out so that you don't have to laboriously respond to each of my questions!

Anyway, I was wondering if it's a good idea to leave in place some of the rope I'm going to pull the cable bundle with. I don't know what kind of cables will be evolving in the next few years, and maybe I'll want to run some eventually. Is this a common practice? If not, does it sould like a good idea?

Thanks!

I haven't seen a single site that covers all of this extensively, although searches for "home automation", "X10", etc. can be useful in turning up sites.

In general, if you're going to do it make sure to do it right - keep ethernet away from power cable (1 foot minimum while running parallel, if you must cross then cross at a 90 degree angle). Use RG-6 quad shield for cable. If running speaker or video wiring, then RG-6 quad shield, solid copper core should be used (note - the standard RG-6 you'll find at home improvement stores is copper cladded steel and should not be used for audio/video feeds).

Plan things out ahead of time, use good crimpers, and everything should be good.

As far as leaving rope/string/whatever behind - it's a good idea if you're concerned about future upgrades and you're running cable through some inaccessible places. The flipside is that you may want to seal up holes you drill/cut to reduce air and sound leakage, in which case the string isn't going to do you a bit of good. As usual, there really isn't an absolute yes or no answer on this.

What I saw recommended on all of the home improvement show is to put an empty flex conduit with a pull in it for future growth.

Hmm; if you are going to run it in conduit you dont really need to leave in a pull rope. you can use an existing cable or phone line. Just make sure you pull in a replacement for that one too. Personally I would just run 1 spare feed for the phone and cable to a patch panel of some kind and don't worry about needing to pull in others later. If you run Cat 5 phone wire you can feed in 4 phone numbers per feed and with its twist per foot ratio you can run in adsl or digital T1 data lines without any problems. If you dont run Cat 5 phone wire you are wasting your time. Crosstalk is guaranteed if you run cat 3 or less and for the price, run cat 5.

Thanks folks.

I'm running 1 RG6 Quad Sheild cable and 3 CAT5 cables -- 2 for data, one for phone. I figure it's possible for someone to want 2 ethernet connections in any given room (I'm renting two rooms out) and I just figured I'd use the CAT5 for phone for convenience and flexibility instead of buing a spool of CAT3.

I was thinking maybe that fiber might become residentially feasible some day. But then I'd have to think about the radius of all the turns I make throughout the house. Maybe that should just be another effort altogether.

One thought I had last night is that I might want to put in a big fat conduit running from the basement to the attic. I could cut a hole in the side of it on each floor. That way, I could run a lot of cable in either direction, distribute to the 2nd floor from the attic, and distribute to the first floor from the basement. I'd hate to add too much length to the cables, though. Does anyone think this would cause too much interference or signal loss?

Thanks!

It won't matter with the phone line. With the cable though you will most likely need an amp installed ,it would depend on your location to the signal source. Your best bet is to run a feed ( both for phone and cable) to a central location and use a 66 block to distribute home runs to each phone jack. You can take the cable feed and amplify the feed and send cable home runs to each location. At least that would be what I would do.
As for the fiber, never will be feasible. You can run at t1 speeds up to your house using copper for a mere fraction of the cost. Adsl and other broadband methods also use existing copper and can get you 2 or 3 times the speed of a t1. Yes, fiber would be ideal in a perfect world but as long as profit is a key motivator, it wont happen.
Have you ever considered going wireless for your network. pump in broadband and you can hook up as many comps as you can afford to buy. I am pricing it out myself and the two methods are comparable in price and they can be reliable up to 500 ft. You could even hook up your neighbors to your network and share your fast connection.

I would do wireless if I didn't have to run cable and phone already. I currently have one cable wire running into the house into a basement room...none others in the house. As for phone, I've got one jack where it enters the house, one in the kitchen, and one in the upstairs hall. Time to modernize. I figured I'd just run the CAT5 while I was at it. I got about 300 ft at a yardsale for $5.

I am planning on getting a block. I have one that I found at work (in the trash bin from an office remodeling project) but it only has two connections per input. I'm using a 16-port RJ45 punchdown block and a 24 port hub, both free when my old company shut down one of their offices. I also have a 48-port punchdown and 2 48-port hubs, but I don't have that many rooms!

I'm putting a 25 dB amp on the CATV line where it enters the house. From there, I'm splitting it twice with a 4dB loss per output splitter. Each of those signals is getting split 4 ways with a 7.4dB loss per output splitter. One of the 8 final outputs won't be used, but it's nice to have an extra one available I put a TV with rabit ears in my workshop last night so I could watch TV while I did stuff. Maybe I'm going to need that 8th port afterall.

Sounds like you have really given this some thought. Good luck.

I wired my 1939 house with cat 5 to provide computer networking and telephone to all rooms. The nice thing about cat 5 is that you wire it up the same way and the telephone can pllug in with the RJ-11 plug into the female cat 5 plug. I ran two lines to each location, one for data, the other for phone. If I need to change them, I can change them at the central wiring hub I put in. I can provide phone service or computer line to a port in about 5 minutes.

This is a lot of work. I would stay away from the bargain supplies and equipment.

The most completely thought-out and informative site that I found was (Not Useful to DIYers) I shamelessly followed their work and built a system very similar to what they propose.

The points at which I found problems were when I used poor quality materials or unreliable techniques.. When I look back at all the time and work that went into the wiring, the price of first quality materials and equipment was miniscule. I think that the argument for structured wiring in a home is compelling.

Let me know if you want to kick this around.

Dido! That pretty much puts it all on the table. The 3 key ingredients are Cat 5, central hub (patch panel or 66 block), and patience. Patience is something we haven't mentioned but after running 3 or 4 runs of I/W you will find yourself getting tired and sloppy. If you run the wire and it gets damaged, replace it. Many times I have had to repair wire inside a new home where the installer pulled it too tight against something metal, or nicked it with a nail or stapler. It will work fine for a month or two, then it will go bad.